SCHOOLS LOOK FOR WAYS TO BOOST WRITING SKILLS

Connecticut Mastery Test scores in town are above the state average, but educators are looking for ways to improve scores on the writing sample.

Calling the test a "snapshot" of fourth-, sixth- and eighth-graders' progress, acting Superintendent of Schools H. Kaye Griffin said neither last year's nor this year's writing sample test results have been pleasing.

Although the state has increased the difficulty of the test given to students in the early fall, the writing sample format has not changed that much, Griffin said. "We have an affirmation here that our writing program does not appear to be aligned with the testing format," she said of the kindergarten through eighth-grade writing curriculum.

Students "probably are not having enough exposure to the kinds of writing being given on this test," Griffin said. "This says to me . . . that there is some work to be done."

"Most of our work has to be done in the written communication and writing," said Constance Fusco, pupil personnel services director. But overall, Madison students did not do as badly on the revised mastery test as the state had predicted they would do, she said.

Students are also tested on listening and reading comprehension, degrees of reading power, and mathematics.

While Griffin called the writing sample scores "disappointing," they were still above the state average for all grades and close to scores obtained by towns with similar educational characteristics.

Writing sample results did show, however, that larger percentages of students need intervention or remedial work than they do in the other areas; but even those are lower than the numbers of students needing intervention statewide.

"If this is a flag, if this is a signal, we need to consider that being in the proficient level is not sufficient," Griffin said. "We need to move them into the excellence cluster."